OSU Sustainable Mobility Delft Trip 2023
Introduction
My name is Jamie Trohimovich (they/them) and I am a junior at Oregon State University. I am majoring in civil engineering with a focus on transportation along with minoring in materials science.
I am taking this course because I am really interested in learning about transportation systems, especially systems that do not involve cars. Additionally, biking is my primary mode of transportation in Corvallis and I am excited to see what a system designed with biking in mind looks like.
My goals are to learn as much about the social and bike culture in the Netherlands as possible.
City Cycling Reading
a) Compare a trip made by cycling and walking to determine the effective speed of cycling vs walking
The trip I am going to compare is going to the Corvallis Fred Meyer from (approximately) my home. This trip is the specific reason I started regularly biking in Corvallis. The walk to the Fred Meyer takes approximately half an hour, although on the way back with all your groceries takes closer to 45 minutes. With biking, I find the amount of time becomes a lot closer to 10 minutes each way. Taking the route that I usually take, the distance is about 1.4 miles, although I would take several shortcuts if I was walking, which only very slightly reduce the time and distance traveled. I'm going to use the travel times estimated by google maps for my calculation.
For biking: 1.4 miles/7 min = 0.2 miles/min or approximately 12 miles/hour
For walking: 1.4 miles/27 min = 0.05 miles/min or approximately 3.11 miles/hour
b) Look up a website that promotes the vehicular cycling philosophy and how the practices are contrary to practices implemented in the Netherlands
Vehicular cycling philosophy is the ideology that bikes should behave and follow traffic laws in the ways that cars do. The website I chose is the Washington Department of Transportation's website: https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/bicycling-walking/bicycling-washington/bicyclist-laws-safety
The philosophy shown on this website is that cyclists should act like cars, but also need to yield to cars in every situation. Almost every rule or piece of advice was relative to how a cyclist should act to ensure that the motorists (who are assumed to not be paying attention for potential cyclists) do not hit them. This is opposite to the practices implemented by the Dutch because the Dutch treat cyclists like people rather than cars. Their system is more clearly divided into cars, cyclists, and pedestrians rather than vehicles and not-vehicles. In addition, the cars are assumed to and expected to yield to and be aware of cyclists and pedestrians, so that the cyclists and pedestrians do not have to worry about car traffic as much.
c) Determine the Oregon set-aside amounts for cycling infrastructure
12,000 miles/gallon / 24 miles/gallon = 500 gallons/year per vehicle
The American population is 332 million people (as of 2021). American people own cars at a rate of 1 vehicle for 1.8 people.
(1 vehicle / 1.8 people ) * 332 million people = 184.44 million vehicles
500 gallons/veh * 184.44 million veh = 92,220 gallons of gasoline
The Oregon gas tax is 38 cents/gallon. The federal gas tax is 18.3 cents/gallon.
92,220 gallons * 38 cents/gallon = 3,504,360 cents = $35,043.6
92,220 gallons * 18.3 cents/gallon = 1,687,626 cents = $ 16,876.26
The total gas tax revenue is $51,919.86. If 70% of that equals the state expenditure on highways, the highway expenditure is $36,343.90 per year.
If 1% of that expenditure goes towards walking and cycling, $3634.39 is the amount spent on walking and cycling per year.
Video Review - Cycling in the US from a Dutch Perspective
The first video, from the channel BicycleDutch, is called cycling in the US from a dutch perspective, showed truly how bad the state of biking infrastructure is from the creator's perspective. He seemed so stressed about the conditions that we cycle in, and at the same time impressed with those who continue to cycle despite the infrastructure. It is strange to me that he is so concerned, since these are the bicycle conditions I am used to seeing in my everyday life, but it is relieving to know that there has been infrastructure created that is far more cyclist friendly. I hope to learn a lot more about types of cycling infrastructure on this trip and how it can be applied to cities in the United States.
First Impressions
I hadn't fully realized how different Amsterdam would feel compared to living in the United States. Delft does not feel like a real place that people can live. I hadn't realized how stressful transportation was for me stateside until I got here.
I have really enjoyed biking in the city, I really enjoy biking stateside but there is so much more opportunity for biking here. It will be difficult to adjust to when I go home, where I will be living with my parents in a city with little to no bike infrastructure. As someone who bikes as their primary mode of transportation, I often find it to be somewhat limiting on the places I can go and things I can do, but I have not found that to be the case here at all.
The amount of public transportation infrastructure has been delightful to see. There is so much potential to go anywhere, which is not always a reality in the states. As someone who sometimes struggles with mobility, that seems like such a freeing reality. This is not to say that the Netherlands is completely nailing it on the accessibility front, but the city meets a lot more of my accessibility needs than almost any US city. One major exception to that is the stairs in this city, which have all been awful.
So far I've been really enjoying it here. This city seems too good to be true, and I've definitely started to see how people can come to Europe and never want to leave.
Facilities Assignment 1 - Bicycle Boulevards
A very common type of bike infrastructure in the Netherlands is a designated or priority bike lane. These streets, often called Fietsstraat, which directly translates to bicycle street. The function of these streets are to limit the car traffic in an area or provide an area for bike-only travel. Places that I have seen these streets implemented are along higher speed automobile roads, in places to keep cyclists separate from pedestrian traffic, or to discourage car passage through residential areas. This kind of street is denoted by signs that indicate that cars are guests or that the roads are bike only. You can see examples of these signs in the two bottom right images. These streets often have two way cycle traffic, and can either be bike only or have space for one car to drive on the street, however, the streets are not wide enough to have more than one car travel. If there are any cars allowed on the streets, it is often so they can access connected residential areas or parking.
The first example I documented is a street called Lessenaar, which is a street that goes along a residential area, as shown in the images to the right. There is car parking along one side of the street, which sits between the sidewalk and the main road. There are no markings on this road, and there is enough space for one car and some bikes to pass through but not enough space for two cars to travel. When I observed this section of street it was fairly late at night, and we still encountered roughly four cars and little to no bike or foot travel, which would make sense since this is a very residential area.
The second area I documented was a bike street along a canal nearby to the previous location. This street is shown in the images on the left below. This street has a painted stripe dividing the street into two directions. This street also uses the typical triangle yield markings to help with joining traffic. When observing this street at approximately 9pm, there were many people out cycling along the canal, enjoying the evening air. Additionally, only one car was observed on this road.
The view of a designated bicycle only path, showing the striping down the center of the road.
The triangle markings on the roads show that people turning onto the facility to yield.
The signage used to denote bike and e-bike priority.
The signage signals no access for cars, and that only bikes and e-bikes can enter.
The streets connecting to the roundabout are different kinds of use, but the roundabout itself is a fietstraat. Additionally, the triangles show the traffic entering the roundabout to yield to traffic passing through the roundabout.
These are the signs posted at the roundabout. The first one indicates a 30 km speed limit, and the red triangle indicates ongoing traffic to yeild
Photo Assignment 1 - Bicycle Roundabouts
Comparing my Hometown to the Netherlands
The city that I am from is Bellevue, Washington. I would consider the kind of town a suburb of a suburb of Seattle. The 2023 population of Bellevue is approximately 150,000 people. There is a bus network in the town, although it is often infrequent and doesn't travel to many places it needs to go. There is extensive car infrastructure and some bike lanes, although very few I would feel safe actually cycling. There are a also a lot of hills in my hometown. In addition to this, the houses and shopping centers are very spread out.
On the other hand, the Netherlands is the complete opposite. There is extensive bike infrastructure and public transportation, and it feels like the places you are trying to go are within accessible reach. There is so much greenery and water. It feels like the infrastructure and the general city environment cares about you. When I am here I feel so much more present in and connected to my environment.
Existing in a city that is designed to protect you and make spaces accessible to you relieves anxieties I didn't even know I had.
Free Weekend Experiences
On Saturday Zachary and I decided to stay in Delft and have a more chill day. Even though it was a pretty rainy and windy morning, we decided to walk part of the delft pottery self-guided tour. While we did not go to all of the stops and instead only visited the ones that seemed interesting, I really enjoyed seeing all the art around the Delft downtown.
After the rain let up we were hoping to go boating on a nearby lake, but unfortunately there was a wedding at the boat rental. We ended up sticking around the lake either way, and had a very chill and low-key day.
On Sunday I ended up going to Den Haag with Bryce and Zachary. It was really windy once again, but it was somehow still warm enough to swim. We ended up walking out to the lighthouses at the end to the pier and biking over to see the sand dunes farther up the beach. We went to lunch at the place we had dinner on the first day, and went to the Lego store before heading back. We got very lost on the way back. I spent the evening walking around Delft and ended up going to a really delightful Turkish place that had gluten free bread.
Facilities Assignment 2 - Cycling Underpasses
Another common piece of bicycle infrastructure is a cycling underpass. These underpasses are often used to shield bike through traffic from car traffic that crosses perpendicular to the road. Dutch cycling infrastructure prioritizes pedestrians, so they often choose to completely separate bike and pedestrian infrastructure in cases where there are significant amounts of vehicles.
In most of the cases observed in the Netherlands, the cars or other automobile traffic will go over the top of the bike paths, while the bikes go underneath. We have not observed any that have bikes go over the car traffic. The width of the overpass is approximately the width of one or two car lanes, and if it needs to be wider there are often breaks in the overpass to allow the daylight to shine through. This is to prioritize the comfort of the bikers and pedestrians, since it can be uncomfortable to be underground for extended periods of time.
The underpass that my group has chosen to document is the bike underpass next to the delft train station. The underpass goes under the existing bus lanes that access the nearby hotel and train station. This bike underpass has two lanes of bike traffic, one for through traffic and one that allows access to the bike parking underneath the station. There is also a sidewalk along the edge to keep pedestrians out of the bike traffic, although at this particular underpass the sidewalk becomes very narrow towards the entrance to the bike parking area. In the images below, we have used Liam's arm length to show the decrease in sidewalk length in the underpass area. The bike paths are divided into the two directions to allow for ease of bicycle access where the path splits to enter the bike parking.
This photo shows a bus on the road above, just after it used the overpass above the bike path. You can see the entrance to the bike parking underneath the bus.
This image shows the overpass and a cyclist going underneath. The perspective makes the tunnel seem small even though it is actually close to 15 feet tall.
This image shows the divided bike lanes under the underpass, and the deviation of the bike lanes allowing access to bike parking.
Houten Reflection
Visiting Houten, I was surprised how different a more suburban area could feel from the US. It seems so dreamy and idyllic, the sense of community, how accessible and connected everything felt, the calm and pleasant feel. The structure of the city makes it so incredibly different and nice compared to anything I've ever experienced. The idea that you can live in a town/less urban area and still have your community centers and amenities so close to you is completely the opposite from what I experienced growing up. Additionally, there were so many third places for people to gather, which is something I've really been missing lately.
Houten seemed too good to be true, and too perfect. It did not seem like a place where real people live, and it seemed too calm of a place for me to ever live.
Photo Assignment 2 - Designated Bus Lanes
Group 6 CE499 Final Presentation.pptxFinal Project Presentation
For the final project in this class my group chose to re-design the section of SW Monroe Avenue across from campus.
We elected to remove cars from the segment in favor of prioritizing transit, pedestrian, and bike access.
Final Reflections
This course exceeded all of my expectations. Between the people, the place, and the incredibly interesting infrastructure I had an overall amazing time. I feel both invigorated to make changes in the way American cities do infrastructure and overwhelmed at the idea of going back to a place that is so car-centric. The mindset that the Dutch build their cities was truly life-altering to experience. Visiting cities that are designed for you to exist and feel safe in is like nothing else.
In addition to all of that, the idea that Dutch cities used to be something car-centric like the United States and were able to become how they are today fills me with so much hope for the future. I hope that one day I get to see that reality here in the states as well.